The Rocky TiVo-DirecTV Relationship

Thomas Hawk writes "Phillip Swann's TV Predictions is out this morning alleging that before dumping their TiVo stock last year, Rupert Murdoch's DirecTV had made a pass at buying a controlling stake in TiVo. According to Swann, 'TiVo's top management did not like Murdoch's offer,' and Swann alleges that this is why you had a fallout between the two companies. As an interesting aside, Rob Pegoraro over at the Washington Post was out yesterday warning people to not buy an HDTV TiVo, as DirecTV will be changing their high-def signal later this year and that if you bought the HDTV TiVo that you might not be able to watch network TV in high def. As an owner of one of those expensive high-def DirecTV TiVos, I sure hope this isn't the case."

Comments

YAFM (Yet Another Fine Mirror)

[winkydink]

Mirrored links

Thomas Hawk writes "Phillip Swann's TV Predictions is out this morning alleging that before dumping their TiVo stock last year, Rupert Murdoch's DirecTV had made a pass at buying a controlling stake in TiVo. According to Swann, 'TiVo's top management did not like Murdoch's offer,' and Swann alleges that this is why you had a fallout between the two companies. As an interesting aside, Rob Pegoraro over at the Washington Post was out yesterday warning people to not buy an HDTV TiVo, as DirecTV will be changing their high-def signal later this year and that if you bought the HDTV TiVo that you might not be able to watch network TV in high def. As an owner of one of those expensive high-def DirecTV TiVos, I sure hope this isn't the case."

Re:YAFM (Yet Another Fine Mirror)

[aeproberts]

The format needs to be standardized.

Tivo is obviously pretty busy as they are also in talks to partner with comcast cable.

http://www.gigaom.com/2005/03/14/comcast-tivo-talk ing-again/

When will they

[RedElf]

Standardize on one format or another so we don't have to buy a new TiVo like device every 6-18 months?

Re:When will they

[jm92956n]

...Standardize on one format or another so we don't have to buy a new TiVo like device every 6-18 months?

As soon as planned obsolesence becomes illegal.

Re:When will they

[Sc00ter]

DirecTV is coming out with their own DVR that will be some kind of home entertainment thing. You'll have one "master" system that will do all the recording and then other systems hooked up to other TVs that will get the information from the master system. It will also allow streaming from your computer for music and pictures.

There is only two "formats" of TiVo for DirecTV, the normal ones that record the stream from the sat, and the new HDTV TiVo's that cost a grand. So I don't see why you would have to buy a new one every "6-8 months" as you suggest.

If you call them now and inquire about a DVR they direct you to the new home entertainment unit that will be coming out soon

Re:When will they

[taniwha]

Actually I think they probably are - DTV was bought by Sky a while back, DTV's signal is just about the most non-standard satellite/cable signal there is out there (everyone else uses relatively standard transport streams, DTV use something of their own design). Sky on the other hand uses DVB (what just everyone else in the world but the US cable/TV guys use - including DiSH).

While I work in the biz (but none of sky/dtv/tivo) I'd guess that Sky are making DTV switch to DVB so all their gear is interoperable

Re:When will they

[anakin876]

Never, they figured out that forcing us into new hardware purchases will help them make the most money.
By THEM I mean the industry in general. If they all work together (or follow the same plans and end up together) then they make the most money - or so they think.

Kind of like the MPAA's strategy of rereleasing old stuff on new media, then claiming pirates are the cause of decreased revenue, rather than the more logical idea that they've used up a lot of the big name back catalog stuff and so people DON'T WANT as many cds as the RIAA thinks should be selling.

Re:When will they

[baudilus]

When people stop buying them every 6-18 months.

Re:When will they

[Em Ellel]

personally, I still own a pair of Series 1 DTivos from about 5 years ago and they still work great - no plans to upgrade any time soon. You do not HAVE to buy a new device of any sort every 6-18 mos, you WANT to. Do not confuse the two.

-Em

Re:When will they

[jlaxson]

And there are multiple types of streams from the Satellites, plus ATSC from the OTA tuner. DirecTV is rolling out MPEG-4 for new HD channels, which the current HR10-250 currently can't deal with. And you do have to buy a new one every 6-8mo if you're doing HDTV Satellite. I just had a HR10-250 (my first Satellite system ever) installed today. They sure as hell better offer a cheap upgrade path.

Re:When will they

[Anonymous Coward]

Get Dish Network and you don't have to buy any of that junk. They just let you use it as part of your service. Why would you want to buy that proprietary junk anyways? Look what happens to people who do.

Re:When will they

[Mysticalfruit]

Last time I checked, DTV's "non-standard" transport streams consisted of an encrypted MPEG2 stream...

Re:When will they

[Anonymous Coward]

"As soon as planned obsolesence becomes illegal."
But realistically, I'd give it 5yrs after the law is passed.

Re:When will they

[taniwha]

yes the video data running in the streams is the same - but they use a non standard multiplex (different sized TS packets) and their own SI data

Re:When will they

[Bullfish]

The purpose of standardization is to provide a baseline from which to deviate.

Re:When will they

[Em Ellel]

Erm, Dish PVRs are even MORE proprietary and still cost a lot of money.

-Em

Re:When will they

[2names]

Unless Microsoft gets involved. Then it will just be ignored.

Re:When will they

[As Seen On TV]

Analog is always compatible. I've been happy with my first-generation Philips-branded TiVo for years now.

No, it doesn't record HD, but at the moment I'm willing to live with that, seeing as how my other choice seems to be to spend hundreds on a machine that might not record HD anyway.

Re:When will they

[jessecurry]

if it's just a matter of the encoding used for the video streams can't TiVo just offer a firmware update?

Re:When will they

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you need to check your facts again. It is not MPEG2.

Re:When will they

[jerw134]

You can't just flash an MPEG-2 encoder and turn it into an MPEG-4 encoder. It doesn't work like that.

Plus, there's the issue that the HD Tivo can't handle Ka signals, so it wouldn't even be able to receive the MPEG-4 stream in the first place.

Bottom line: the current HD Tivo will not work with DirecTV's new HD rollout.

Re:When will they

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it there are no encoders in the DirecTivos...only decoders. These decoders decrypt & decompress the recorded stream which was captured by the dish in an already compressed format. This is why you cannot change the quality of the recording in DirecTivos.

Re:When will they

[jessecurry]

so the TiVo boxes have hardware encoders? I was under the impression that a lot was done with software, but I guess that I was incorrect.

Re:When will they

[Anonymous Coward]

TiVos have hardware encoders. DirecTiVo dosen't, it simply records the mpeg2 stream off the satelite feed.

Re:When will they

[johnmat]

You do of course mean decoder. The DirecTV TIVO units receive an encoded digital stream which they record directly. The box is decode only. The rest is true though - you are very unlikely to be able to upgrade an MPEG2 decoder to MPEG4 with a firmware update, as MPEG4 is much more complex.

Re:When will they

[Anonymous Coward]

its pre-mpeg2, it was one of the proposals for mpeg2. then the current mpeg2 was chosen over it.

Re:When will they

[arodland]

Like, for instance, if you want to be able to continue receiving most of the channels that you pay for. Maybe you're not "forced" to get new hardware, but most people aren't forced to do much of anything in their lives. OTOH you really want to get that hardware unless there's something wrong with you.

Re:When will they

[Em Ellel]

From the article:

DirecTV spokeswoman Jade Ekstedt said in an e-mail that owners of older hardware will still be able to watch the service's current HD lineup, which includes high-def versions of ESPN, HBO, Showtime and other non-network channels, plus the standard-definition network fare it offers now.

So what exactly are you talking about???

-Em

Re:When will they

[Anonymous Coward]

It is MPEG2 enough to convert to DVD format after I extract it from my DirecTiVo, and play on all my set-top DVD players (and the PS2!) without re-encoding.

"Close Enough."

it's true

[skaeight]

Directv is switching to MPEG-4 encoding this year with the launch of the spaceway sats. I'm sure there will be a transition period so your HDTiVo should work for a while, but there will come a point where you will have to upgrade.

A couple of good sites to find more info are:

http://www.dbsforums.com
http://www.dbstalk.com
http://www.tivocommunity.com

Re:it's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Is DirecTV is just adding new HD channels using MPEG4 or is it really switching? In other words, if you're viewing HD on your HD TiVo today, will you lose any functionality?

Also, has DirecTV made any statements about paying any transition costs for new equipment? I recall some statement in the TiVo newsgroup that DircTV has done this when necessary in the past.

Re:it's true

[ad0gg]

I feel sorry for all the people who bought their directivo hd boxes for $1200. This is why I like cable's rent the box model, $7 a month. Can't go wrong.

Re:it's true

[Anonymous Coward]

sweet, that means that Cable will kick it's ass HARD in HD quality.

that and VOOM refusing to move from a REAL hdtv format will make sure that directTV is still third banana.

Re:it's true

[mr_zorg]

Most of the HD channels currently on DirecTV aren't worth a damn anyway so no real lose. The regular sat channels will not be changing, AFAIK, and the OTA functions of the HDTiVo will still work.

HD Tivo is obsolete

[Ironsides]

As DirectTV is moving forward on changing to Advanced Video Codecs (AVCs) such as H.264 the current HD Tivos will become obsolete as they can only recieve the current encoding of MPEG-2. Sorry, but tis true. I also doubt that Tivo will make an update to the MPEG-2 HDs to recieve the new codec. Also, I have heard that DirectTV is moving to the DVB-S2 transmission standard from their current DVB-S. Extra information and/or signal strength, their choice.

Re:HD Tivo is obsolete

[Splork]

no HD TiVo software update to support the codec is possible. TiVo uses a hardware video decoder.

Re:HD Tivo is obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

DirecTV is NOT DVB-S

Re:HD Tivo is obsolete

[Vitriol Angst]

All of this is assuming that TiVo won't support already purchased HD products. My guess is, that unless they are crazy, they will make an announcement that anyone buying an HD Tv will be guaranteed an upgrade when and if it is needed.

Of course, I have no control over the sane actions of others--this is only what "I" would do.

cablecard

[alatesystems]

This is why the CableCard is so important, so that multiple devices can operate like the company provided boxes. I have a cable company dvr, and it is really awesome, but if I wanted to use a brand name TiVo, I would be pissed at having to use IR blasters.

As far as I know, there's no cablecard equivalent for satellite boxes, but there should be. Ahh, the incredible balance between freedom and regulation.

Re:cablecard

[wembley]

The cable companies hate CableCard, which was federally mandated. They lose another revenue stream (hardware), and you have an interface they can't necessarily control and spam OnDemand ads onto.

With the repeated granting of 1-year extensions on the CableCard deadline, don't hold your breath waiting for it. We still don't have all the HD content that was FCC mandated...

Re:cablecard

[Sc00ter]

In order for that to work then the signal would have to be the same, and it's not.

I had a SA TiVo on cable for a while. I had the old style box with an IR Blaster and it worked fine, never missed a show or had any issues with it.

Most digital cable boxes can be controled with the serial cable from the TiVo to increase speed and reliablility.

The DirecTiVo units record the stream from the sats, so they are incompatible for that reason. But they give you PERFECT quality, something the SA TiVo's can't do.

The signals will probably always be different between cable and sat, so I don't know what they could do. I see a future where cable companies use different encoding for their streams, making the cablecard worthless anyway :(

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the FCC mandate any HD content at all? I thought the transition required was to digital at whatever quality broadcasters wanted. And cable companies, since they aren't broadcasters, could continue distributing in analog or digital at whatever quality they wanted.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet the CableCard may become a crucial differentiator for cable over sat, since cable customers will have a much wider choice of digital devices. So the government has dragged cable companies kicking and screaming toward higher long-term profits and competitiveness.

This is why you should not listen when someone tells you "the market will take care of it." "The market" as constructed by the U.S. stock market is only wise in the ultra short term.

Re:cablecard

[alatesystems]

My company already offers the cable card.

Time Warner seems to be a pretty good company all around. My internet access is awesome, the dvr is awesome, and they haven't ever gone up on my rates.

Re:cablecard

[hazman]

Bzzzzt...

There is no FCC mandate of HDTV content. The FCC has asked nicely, with a cherry on top, that broadcasters produce and deploy HDTV in hopes that the 15% of the US population that currently receives their TV content from NTSC broadcasts would go out and get a shiny new digital TV that can recieve and decode the mandated ATSC digital broadcast signal and the HDTV feature in supposed to entice that portion of the population to do so.

Note: Those broadcasts are not required to be HDTV. They can be SDTV (480 interleaved @ 30fps) like current NTSC signals. EDTV (commonly 480 progressive @ 30fps) or HDTV (720p@60fps or 1080i@30fps). The broadcasters can choose to transmit 4 or 5 SDTV streams or one HDTV stream on their bandwidth allocation. It's their choice.

The FCC has mandated a transition to ATSC from NTSC. The FCC has mandated ATSC tuners in television sets for sale in the US. The FCC has NOT mandated HDTV.

Re:cablecard

[Lumpy]

you are a fucking liar.

the Cable companies do NOT hate the cablecard. It's motorola, Scientifica Atlanta and Jerrold as well as other sattelite and Catv headend gear makers.

all of them REFUSE to follow any standards and intercooperate to ensure headend and plant lock-in on cable companies. If you are an all motorola cable company you haveto throw away EVERYTHING to use any SA gear. Motorola Loves that. SA does the same damn thing.

the cablecard gives up the monopoly of locking in the cable companies to a single vendor for their headend gear.

the rest of the world uses a single standard... the US has several that are bastardized by each equipment makes to ensure there is no interoperability.

so take your cabletv company hating LIES and go elsewhere.

if you want cablecard to exist then tell Motorola to quit fighting it as well as the other equipment makers.

if they ran the damned DVB standard like the rest of the world this all would be a non issue.

Re:cablecard

[DaveJay]

>you are a fucking liar.

Aaaaaaand...you are wasting your time, because with a kickoff like that, why should I read the rest of your comment?

Re:cablecard

[PepeGSay]

Moderate parent up. He is dead right. Cable companies do not make any appreciable money on cable boxes. This is because the cable companies screwed up their provider model for the cable boxes and locked themselves into the few providers which they pay nearly $500 for a cable box. I worked for a cable company and this was one of the big reasons they supported the DOCSIS standard for cable modems which brought cable modems down into the $80 range, and possibly even lower now.

Re:cablecard

[DaHat]

By rest of the world using DVB... are you not counting South Korea, Taiwan and Argentina as part of the world? They, along with the US all use ATSC instead of DVB for terrestrial broadcasts.

Re:cablecard

[schnikies79]

I wouldn't say he is a "fucking liar", just uneducated. I modded you up because what you say is true but the opening is terribly unnecessary.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

yet you wasted your time to reply =)

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

I modded you up because what you say is true but the opening is terribly unnecessary.

...and then you promptly undid your moderation by telling him why you moderated that post up. Way to go, sport.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

not all of the usa uses ATSC and the american ATSC is not compatable with their ATSC.

herein lies the problem that lumpu was pointing out.

the american companies take a "standard" and bastardize it to make sure it only works with their crap. It's a bloody crime.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, if you do have the CableCard slot, can you tell the Cable Co. to take their stinking box back(and it's ugly remote control)??

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, he is probably one of the guys that is getting sick of the blatent and bold faced lies spreading all over the net.

right now there are lots of "experts" echoing what they read in some posting on the AVS forums and echo it as fact or truth trying to sound like an "expert" or someone inside.

I also am sick of it. it's time to smack these people that think acting like an educated parrot is a smart thing to do. the AVS forums are becoming a usless place because of them.

cablecard is hated by the gear manufacturing companies.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

wow everything you have said is 100% wrong, fales and made up.

cable companies LOVE the cablecard idea. It's the gear makes that hate it and are fighting it. the FCC never mandated any HD content they mandated Digital content. BIG difference.

nice to see that someone tries to look like they know by simply echoing rants from AVSforum.

cablecard is desired by cable companies, they can get out of the equipment supplying business and gain a way out of the vendor lock in that the cable equipment and sattelite companies force on them.

Re:cablecard

[wembley]

My mistake. I blobbed digital and HDTV together.

The FCC mandated a switch to digital (not HDTV per se, although it is heavily being used for it), which was repeatedly appealed and postponed.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that is the whole point. You rent a cable card (or maybe buy one) from somewhere so you use the TV's internal tuner as opposed to some external box.
But you lose some features like the onscreen menu guide, video on demand, and ppv stuff because the card can only receive and decode the information and can't send anything back to the head end.

At least that's what a quick google search seems to indicate. (It also mentioned that TiVo was going to release a cable card compatable DVR in one of the results)

Re:cablecard

[wembley]

While this may be true in the recent past, do you remember your pre-digital cable box?

Was it, like mine and many others, a faux-wood-panelled box with two red LED numbers? Was that box 10-15 years old, long since paid for, and you were still charged $5-10 for it? Remember how they charged you extra for the remote?

You can't tell me that by renting out all those ancient Jerrolds and General Instruments boxes, the cable company wasn't making a profit on hardware rental.

The brave new world of cablecos losing money on boxes you cite is a result of the digital upgrades of the last few years.

Re:cablecard

[As Seen On TV]

Close. Not perfect. One hundred percent of the US population receives TV content via NTSC broadcasts. I think you're probably thinking about over-the-air versus cable and satellite. I don't know if the 15 percent number is right; I'll take your word for it.

NTSC defines a picture format. All television signals broadcast or received in the US are NTSC signals except for ATSC broadcasts.

Re:cablecard

[wembley]

I wouldn't even say I'm uneducated.

I misspoke about HDTV, really meaning the FCC mandate to move to digital broadcast; we have a difference of opinion about cablecos and their hardware (see my other post on the faux-wood boxes).

As far as the opening and tone of the response - it's all good. This is slashdot. One geek's Flamebait is another geek's Insightful.

Re:cablecard

[The Vulture]

Not the best way to start off a post, but you are correct. It's Motorola and SA (Scientific Atlanta) playing the game.

However, at the same time, cable operators are afraid of CableCard. The advantage of freeing them up to use any frontend that they want also scares them. At least by forging a relationship with Motorola or SA, they can get their boxes branded and control the content. With CableCard, anybody can make a set-top box, with no branding, no advertising lock-in, and no guaranteed content protection.

What I would really love to see is a PCI card that accepts a CableCard, which can be used to decrypt the digital cable content. Not so that I can spread the shows around the Internet, but so that I can use the features of my MythTV machine. (Yes, the content has to be decrypted for MythTV to really make any use of it, otherwise the PCI card has to have video out. MythTV would still lose the OSD feature, and it would be harder to configure.)

Microsoft might be the closest ally on that, since they'll need a way to capture digital cable content for their Media Center platform (if they wish to continue that).

-- Joe

Re:cablecard

[thparker]

so take your cabletv company hating LIES and go elsewhere.

Who knew the cable companies had rabid fans? That's wild.

Re:cablecard

[DaHat]

Really? I work with and develop systems that are used with ATSC as well as other digital video standards... with out reaching very far, I can lay my hands on a half a dozen different products that my company makes that are used in multiple countries that use ATSC... including the US without modification or special tweaks.

I disagree with your assertion that the ATSC that is used in the US is somehow... Americanized or has become an American specific standard. Yes, there are some devices out there that don't play by the rules, this can be found with just about any standard, and in many different places.

The problem with even minor tweaking to the ATSC standard for use in a given country is that all players involved would need to agree... and that is no easy task considering many of those same companies would like to be able to sell in other ATSC using countries as well.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

One hundred percent of the US population receives TV content via NTSC broadcasts.

This sounds strange. Some US people live in areas that don't receive broadcast TV, so 100% is not possible. And then 80-85+% of households choose to receive TV over cable (or other altanatives like digital satellite) instead of broadcast. Cable is the opposite of broadcast!

A digital cable signal decoded by a box or TV never has to be converted to NTSC before your TV displays it either so your statement can't be true even if you separate "NTSC" from "broadcast"

Re:cablecard

[As Seen On TV]

Some US people live in areas that don't receive broadcast TV, so 100% is not possible.

Um. You're not understanding my point. All of the TV broadcast in the US except ATSC TV is broadcast in the NTSC format. That covers over-the-air broadcasts, satellite broadcasts and cable broadcasts.

You're referring to cable and broadcast like they're two different things. That's not right. Cable is one type of broadcast, using signals over wires either strung on poles or buried in ground. There are other types of broadcasts, like line-of-sight and over-the-horizon VHF and direct-broadcast satellite.

A digital cable signal decoded by a box or TV never has to be converted to NTSC

That sentence made no sense at all. NTSC is a signaling format. It defines luminance and chroma samples and a scanning pattern as displayed by your TV. Everything that shows up on your TV (assuming you live in an NTSC country) is in the NTSC format, unless you've got a TV that can display ATSC formats.

But nobody gets ATSC who doesn't get NTSC, so everybody who gets TV in the US gets NTSC. Get it?

Re:cablecard

[Lumpy]

That is the bigest point. The suppliers INTRENTIONALLY obfuscate and tweak the "standards" to create massive lock-in. Yes everyone, I did not start out the post on a good note, and apologize to everyone about it, but I am sick and tired of people making things up and passing it off as fact. Almost everything the main post I origionall responded to is a lie. the FCC did not mandate HDTV, the cable companies do not hate the cablecard, these are all the current industry FUD and lies that are going around everywhere and espically on the AV forums on the net.

I have several friends in the Cable TV biz, they all DESPERATELY want the cablecard to become a reality. They want the FCC to force a standard down the throats of these Digital headend equipment makers because they refuse to do it themselves because they will not be able to sell a $75.00 converter box for $500+ at lots of 10,000+ the digital cable box is one of the BIGGEST moneymakers for motorola and SA. The DOCSIS standard was the very first steps taken by the cable Tv industry to stand up to the companies like SA and Motorola.

If it was not for DOCSIS and the cable companies banding together to effectively force the equipment providers to play ball (it also helped that there were lots of little players happy to get in on the game.... it's the same in digital TV recently, look up "cherrypicker" on google for one example.) then cable modems would still be a rent-it only item with the horrid bitrates from 3 years ago.

I just wish that the FCC would give other companies the nod and certification to make headend and cable gear, some healthy competition from elsewhere might make the big equipment makers pay attention and settle on a real standard.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, Motorola invented digital cable and digital sat technology, including the encryption.

Second, DVB allows for different encryption (Conditional Access) underpinning. CableCARDs allow for each individual set-top to have their own conditional access. It is possible that have a mutlicrypt system (and not too expensive for cable companies to deploy today) which would easily allow for multiple set-top/CableCARD vendors to be used on the same system.

However, what is the benefit? It would give cable companies better pricing on set-tops, but not by much as unit volume pricing would go out the door once a second vendor came into play.

There is a standard for digital cable, it's called MPEG-2 in addition to multiple ATSC and SCTE specifications.

Conditional Access is all closed-standards and for good reason. DVB does allow for Simulcrypt and cable companies could easily migrate to Simulcrypt systems and still maintain their legacy set-tops. However, Comcast and others have decided to instead develop new CA technology (see Motorola and Comcast agreement from several weeks ago).

Re:cablecard

[WiggyWack]

"We still don't have all the HD content that was FCC mandated..."

HD content was never mandated. What was mandated was broadcast stations switching to a digital signal. Digital != HD.

The public is already confused about this, but I figured the Slashdot crowd would understand the distinction.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I'm not in the industry so maybe I didn't know all the jargon. Don't most lay people make a disctinction between broadcast and cable TV? Broadcast networks and cable channels? TV and radio broadcasters and the cable company which transmits TV and radio programs over wires or fiber?

NTSC is a signaling format.

An analog signalling format, right? So if I have digital cable (or satellite with the MPEG or other encodings this story is about) with a decoder box connected to the RGB or component inputs on my projection TV, where is the analog NTSC signalling format being used? I could take the NTSC tuner out of the TV and this would still work.

Re:cablecard

[As Seen On TV]

No, nobody makes a distinction between broadcast television (which is redundant anyway) and cable television (which is one medium on which television programs are broadcast).

NTSC is both an analog and a digital format. Actually, it's a lot more than that. But to wildly oversimplify, yes, there's an analog format and a digital format.

And I think you need to go back and look again at your television. Those "RGB" (actually, YUV, or luminance/chroma) inputs are, in fact, analog.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

DirectTV has a serial port that allows pretty decent control. This is how I have my ReplayTV connected, and why I choose DirectTV over DishNetwork, as DishNetwork boxes do not have serial control ports.

Re:cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

No, nobody makes a distinction between broadcast television (which is redundant anyway) and cable television (which is one medium on which television programs are broadcast).
"One hundred percent." "Nobody." Huh.

A quick Google search shows lots of references making a distinction between cable networks/TV and broadcast TV. Here's one from a cable company.

NTSC is both an analog and a digital format.
So switching from NTSC to ATSC for digital TV wasn't necessary at all! (joking)

NTSC, a standard for the broadcast of analog TV.
Broadcast television systems.

And I think you need to go back and look again at your television. Those "RGB" (actually, YUV, or luminance/chroma) inputs are, in fact, analog.
When weren't they? Are you trying to say that because they're analog that they're somehow NTSC or carrying NTSC or ATSC signals? These are the same inputs my computer plugs into.

Also why would you presume that RGB inputs are the same as component inputs? Both are analog and can carry video derived from NTSC, ATSC, or any other signal source (like a computer).

Re:cablecard

[Rich0]

Conditional Access is all closed-standards and for good reason.

Uh, what reason is that?

Good cryto does not require the protocols to be secret to work.

If you want to use crypto to keep receivers from decoding content that isn't paid for, then put your decryption key on a smartcard. The smartcard would be issued an encrypted session key for a segment of encrypted video, and if the viewer paid for that channel it would output the decrypted session key. Encrypted messages could be passed in and out of the smartcard to tell it to enable or disable channels, or to find out what PPV shows were bought.

The interface to the smartcard could be completely open, and a PCI-based interface card could be made available for MythTV/MediaCenter/whatever users.

Viola - a system that is reasonably hack-proof which lets paying users watch/record video, and which blocks non-paying users. And the only part of the standard that is closed is the private key on the smartcard.

Back when video scrambling meant playing tricks like messing with the analog video signal in a fairly easily-reversed way, keeping the algorithm secret was important. With decent modern cryptography, the algorithm is not important as long as it is strong.

If I were making a cable box I'd just stream video with a changing AES session key every 30 seconds or so, and then encrypt the session key with either AES or RSA so that it could be decrypted only within the hardware of a smartcard. The session key is not sensitive and can be shared with the MythTV box. The master key is very sensitive and should never leave the smartcard.

Re:cablecard

[Rich0]

I've seen Tivos attached to DirecTV over serial. I've seen those owners switch to integrated DirecTivo. There is no comparison.

Every time you flip channels there is a few second lag (in addition to the normal few-second lag) as the Tivo switches the channel on the receiver. It is very noticable. With a DirecTivo it just changes channels like a TV should.

There really should be a cablecard standard for satellite TV. The content should be the service - not the box that decodes it.

This is Business news, really.

[ackthpt]

I heard on the BBC WS this morning that LG and Matsushita had settled some stink about IP and plasma screens, which restricted markets in Korea and Japan, until settled, but didn't think it was 'News for Nerds' and was 'stuff that didn't matter'

With TiVo selling out to Comcast and pushing pop-up ads, I can't feel much positive about them anymore.

Re:This is Business news, really.

[Reaperducer]

So now the new /. paradigm is: TiVO are the bad guys.
Apple are the bad guys.

Next thing you know, Microsoft will be fighting spam.
Oh, wait...

Foxblocking Tivo?

[AtariAmarok]

With Murdoch taking over all of Tivo, we'll need a sort of different kind of Foxblocker for this. I suggest gluing a couple of cable TV jacks to either end of a wooden spool, and inserting this in your incoming co-ax cable.

Re:Foxblocking Tivo?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about ABC blocking?
http://imdb.com/news/sb/2005-04-04/

This guy has a challenge about Fox blocking.
http://boortz.com/nuze/200503/03282005.html

Re:Foxblocking Tivo?

[AtariAmarok]

You thought I was serious? I personally find the whole Foxblocking notion to be hilarious: it is like sticking your fingers in your ears and going NYAAAA when someone says something you do not like. It is just as mature. Only this time, you are paying for them saying it (an apt comparison: those who block Fox are paying for getting Fox already).

Re:Foxblocking Tivo?

[Monkelectric]

going NYAAAA when someone says something you do not like

IF you're watching fox, its sticking your hands in your ears and going NYAAAAA when someone says something that isnt true.

Re:Foxblocking Tivo?

[Anonymous Coward]

did you read that site? It says to block Fox, and then go in and call the people who advertise on fox.

How do you call them when you can't recieve fox anymore.

Re:Foxblocking Tivo?

[nazzdeq]

In the back of the book segment tonight.... Only retarded liberals need this device, anyone else would just change the channel.

Re:Foxblocking Tivo?

[Anonymous Coward]

"3. Use our web tool to send an e-mail to FOX's advertisers letting them know:

* a. You have blocked FOX News.
* b. As long as they advertise with FOX News, you won't buy their product."

Ahh...what? How will you know who advertises on FOX news?

Re:No problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

When will running water be installed?

Times they are a changin...

[barfy]

I am an owner of the HDTV box, and yes it was expensive, and it has already been broken and replaced once ...

But it is the *ONLY* box that does what it does. 2 OTA tuners, 2 Satellite Tuners, both OTA and Satellite HD...

But Mpeg4 is coming, and this box has NO way to deal with it. And even as an owner of the box, I welcome MPEG4, as this will give me what I really want... Not "digital quality", but "quality digital". Replacing all of the boxes out there is cheaper than building and launching a satellite. HD will be where they go first, but eventually ALL DirectTV will be mpeg4.

I am sad that there was a breakdown between Tivo and DirectTV, because the combo *is* the best way to watch tv today.

There is some promise apparantly for us HDTiVo folks to replace our boxes with something "as good or better". We shall see when it happens. For now, I LOVE my HDTiVo.

Re:Times they are a changin...

[Sc00ter]

But the new sat is for spot beams (locals). So if you have the new DirecTV DVR (the multiroom one that is not released yet), you'll be able to get all the same programming you can get now.

Can you record your OTA HD channels with the HDTiVo?

Re:Times they are a changin...

[Jaguar777]

But it is the *ONLY* box that does what it does. 2 OTA tuners, 2 Satellite Tuners, both OTA and Satellite HD...

My Comcast HD DVR has 2 tuners, and doesn't need an OTA setup since Comcast carries my local HD channels in their lineup. I only have to pay $5 a month, and when the box becomes obsolete I can swap it out for a new one.

Re:Times they are a changin...

[badfrog]

Can you record your OTA HD channels with the HDTiVo?

Yes.

Re:Times they are a changin...

[raygundan]

Plus, I believe they are moving to the tivo interface down the road on the comcast hardware, due to Comcast's recent agreement with tivo. It won't exactly *be* a tivo, but the onscreen system will look and act like it, which is all that matters.

They may even be doing it with software upgrades on existing hardware, but if they aren't, you can swap out the box for a new one whenever you want.

If only I didn't hate comcast so much.

Re:Times they are a changin...

[Jaguar777]

If only I didn't hate comcast so much.

Give in to the darkside. I did and now have the power of 6down/768up. Throw on Vonage and you can get rid of your phone company. Now you only have to deal with one utility service instead of two. ;)

Re:Times they are a changin...

[PoderOmega]

But it is the *ONLY* box that does what it does

You mean the only TiVo box to that? The motorola HDTV+DVR box I have from Comcast has dual HD tuners. The interface is not as pretty as TiVo but for $10 a month and no upfront cost it has exceeded my expectations. I am not a big TV watcher so the 80 gigs is enough for me. The upfront cost for that 1 HDTV TiVo box would be insane for someone like me.

Re:Times they are a changin...

[gremlins]

um have you heard of alittle thing called Mythtv? Does that and more.
=P

Re:Times they are a changin...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the only TiVo box to that? The motorola HDTV+DVR box I have from Comcast has dual HD tuners.

No, he means the only box to provide 2 HD Sat tuners and 2 HD OTA tuners. That's FOUR HD tuners, capable of recording simultaneously. I don't know of any other DVR that can do that.

Re:Times they are a changin...

[PoderOmega]

OTA? I'm not up to speed on that. If it means Off The Air then I'm not impressed. If you had cable you wouldn't need to get anything off the air. I guess if you wanted to record 2 cable shows and two local channels at the same time it would be cool, but still not worth the price of that box.

Re:Times they are a changin...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can record OTA HD with the HD TiVo. I've set one up and seen it for myself. Beautiful NCAA tournament action here in Chapel Hill made it all worthwhile.

Pleasing customers

[notthe9]

I doubt that they would make the devices like the article poster's non-functional too soon, seeing as people who buy stuff like that are often the kind of customer who would get the most pissed off.

Business before hate.

TV? What is that?

[Speak Forcefully]

I don't own a TV, although I've heard of it. Isn't it some sort of mind-control device? Why would anyone want to own such a thing?

Re:No problem.

[Gannoc]

http://www.epa.gov/chemrtk/vccep/sponsor2.htm

pffft. Running water. All of you people out there with your runner water are just rotting your minds and bodies. In my family, we read books and discuss philosophy while making the 3/4 mile trek to our well. We don't use running water, and we're better people for it. Don't even get me started on electicity and your demon antibiotics.

Re:No problem.

[pjbgravely]

I live in a fringe area with no cable. I can get broadcast channels using rooftop $150 antennas and signal boosters. I got a HDTV tuner and now can see of the channels crystal clear, that is when they are broadcasting, most aren't full time yet. I am only 45 miles from one city but the hills really block the analog signal, while the digital gets through. It might be worth your while to try next year when most will be digital.

Murdoch will ace you for money

[gmknobl]

unless there is a widespread cry. Since his neo-con bent makes much of what he does profit-only motivated, biased and unfair, your best bet will be to get all other similarly equiped people together and scream your heads off that you will leave DirecTV entirely if they don't foot the bill for any tech changes that may occur on this front.

Even then, I think you have an uphill battle and will pay something, somewhere, to maintain your equipment. It may even be under the guise of providing you with "better" service/quality.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

Re:Murdoch will ace you for money

[Anonymous Coward]

what in the holy hell are you babbling about?

in the english language we use these arrangement of words called a sentance. please attempt to use them in the future.

Re:Murdoch will ace you for money

[Hassman]

At least the other poster use proper capitalization.

Re:Murdoch will ace you for money

[Hassman]

*sigh* leave it to me to make a joke only to screw up and use the word "use" instead of "used".

Blech.

Re:Murdoch will ace you for money

[AtariAmarok]

"At least the other poster use proper capitalization"

The other poster was also intelligent enough not to flame about sentence structure while misspelling "sentence."

Re:Murdoch will ace you for money

[gmknobl]

I find it amusing that someone, probably Karl Rove, thought my reply was flamebait. I'm sure it attracted some neo-con who would label it as such but what I said is verifiably true so tough nuts demoter! You'll just have to live with me being right and not liking it. And as far as my stuff not being gramatically correct, you just blew yourself up on that call.

Re:Murdoch will ace you for money

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read your journal entry and immediately came here to see what the fuss is about. Having read your comment, and seen the clearly unfair and biased moderation applied to it, I am quite literally foaming with outrage here.

This is absolutely unacceptable moderation. Your comment wasn't flamebait regardless of your views about Rupert Murdoch. While I disagree that he's a "neo-con", you have every right to say the opposite and those who disagree have a duty to respond with their reasons.

My feeling is that this is a major enough issue as far as Slashdot is concerned. Please, if you feel as I do, email CmdrTaco explaining why you feel the moderation is unfair, and asking that it be overturned and that the moderator in question have their moderation privileges revoked. If you can't get a fair answer, then the next steps up are your local AG, and Slashdot's ISP, Savvis.NET. You can contact them by email too. Remember to be polite and succinct. Ask them to look into this clear abuse of moderation privileges. Tell them free speech is the bedrock of a democratic society. Explain how the lack of action against such a clearly abusive moderator damages your ability to speak as you wish and people to hear what you're saying.

Together, working together, we can undo this kind of wanton abuse of the moderation system.

Yes it is true

[doormat]

DirecTV will be moving to a 8PSK signal modulation system and to MPEG-4 for HD for the SpaceWay satellite system, both of which are incompatible with the HD DirecTivo. You'll still get the old HD channels broadcast over the older satellites (Ku band, QPSK and MPEG-2), but none of the new fancy stuff (Ka band, 8PSK and MPEG-4).

Answers to Foxblocking

[AtariAmarok]

Where oh where is the conservative answer to this? The "RatherNot (tm)" CBS news blocker. The "Clean the Air America" radio filter. The "Ted Turnoff" CNN filter. And last but not least, the "Moving Out" web filter that blocks moveon.org.

Re:Answers to Foxblocking

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that conservatives and science usually don't mix, so you won't be seeing anything like this from their side.

Re:Answers to Foxblocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the ratings for CBS news, CNN and Air America, and you'll see that such technology is unnecessary.

Re:Answers to Foxblocking

[donutello]

It's hard to find conservative people stupid enough to pay $8.95 a pop for something they could do themselves for free.

Re:Answers to Foxblocking

[jnaujok]

Conservatives don't need this "technology". We already know how to change a channel when we want to.

Re:Answers to Foxblocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure you do......Parent Television Council/....

Re:Answers to Foxblocking

[jnaujok]

Look, we're willing to research what our children watch and make informed decisions about what is appropriate for our children to watch. Wahhh! Mean old Conservatives!

Re:When will they2

[pcmanjon]

" Standardize on one format or another so we don't have to buy a new TiVo like device every 6-18 months?"

Thats the whole point, and their whole business plan.

1) User buys TiVo
2) User buys TiVo again
3) User buys TiVo yet again
4) User buys TiVo again
5) User buys TiVo another time
6) User buys TiVo baby baby one more time
7) MegaProfit

Wikify:HD Tivo is obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

As DirectTV is moving forward on changing to Advanced Video Codecs (AVCs) such as H.264 the current HD Tivos will become obsolete as they can only recieve the current encoding of MPEG-2. Sorry, but tis true. I also doubt that Tivo will make an update to the MPEG-2 HDs to recieve the new codec. Also, I have heard that DirectTV is moving to the DVB-S2 transmission standard from their current DVB-S. Extra information and/or signal strength, their choice.

Must be like books

[Anonymous Coward]

' Isn't it some sort of mind-control device? Why would anyone want to own such a thing?'

I think it is like a book. Something that might damage your mind by providing it new information. I strongly suggest a shotgun, match, and gasoline to counter the threat caused by books and television. Hammers will work on radios, too. We can't let outside thoughts pollute our little worlds.

conspiracy nut

[Anonymous Coward]

' Since his neo-con bent makes much '

I think he is a Rosicrucian too.

' biased and unfair '

tell me about it. Rupert does not share our thoughts, so he is biased and unfair. I don't even think he is human.

Sweet Justice

[Sephiro444]

Pardon my lack of sympathy for HDTV TiVo/DirecTV customers. But as a cable customer stuck for years with a SD Tivo while DirecTV customers have enjoyed their HDTV version, I am only too happy to offer a smug seat on the SDTV couch as we all wait for the day, someday, that the media companies get their act together enough that we can all enjoy more than 5 channels of decent HD content (maybe even time-shift it, too!).

I only fear TiVo might end up as an unfortunate casualty of this extended growing period.

Re:TV? What is that?

[Anonymous Coward]

then why are you posting to a post regarding television.

all that free time you have, gotta fill it somehow, by being dumb on forums...

maybe you are just that weakminded to be brainwashed

Re:TV? What is that?

[ggvaidya]

I don't know about you, but I own my TV for the articles :P.

I misread the title...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and thought "What the hell does Sylvester Stallone have to do with TiVo?"...

Re:I misread the title...

[gclef]

And I thought: flying squirrels? TiVo? Really?

Re:I misread the title...

[JabberWokky]

Heh. I though the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which gave the term "DirecTV" a whole new meaning.

--
Evan "I'm just a sweet season pass"

Re:cablecard - where's TR?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cable companies are doing their best to make the cablecard standard irrelevant - by making sure that add-on services like PPV and OnDemand will only work with a rented box. So only those boxes will truly be able to integrate all services - and a stand-alone Tivo, cablecard or no, will continue to be a third-party mess of wires and IR cables and A/B switches if you want anything beyond vanilla cable service. They'll do anything it takes to avoid a level playing field.

Boy, I sure love how well we're served by the "free market" in the tech sector - where monopoly-weilding corporations are free to bang us over our heads with a hammer again and again and again, and we the market just take it because of the lack of viable alternatives. It's not even a liberal vs. conservative issue anymore. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him?

Rocky & TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullwinkle: Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a TiVo out of this hat.

Rocky: That trick never works.

/Bullwinkle reaches in hat and pulls out MGM Lion's head.

MGM Lion: ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!

Bullwinkle: Oops. Guess I need a new hat.

They're doing both.

[raygundan]

The first thing in MPEG4 will be HD locals, which you don't have now, so you won't really be losing anything. Up next will be the existing HD channels, and that's where you'll feel the first loss. The real kicker is when the full MPEG4 transition occurs-- this is where you're going to lose all your non-HD channels.

It's likely that they will offer you a replacement box (although this is just me speculating) for free or at a steep discount, since those of you with the HD-Tivo are highend customers. Unfortunately for the Tivo faithful, it won't be a Tivo.

Re:They're doing both.

[rw2]

LA and NYC both have HD local feeds. Many of us get access to those because we cannot get HD feeds from our local stations. So there are actually lots of people who could be effected by this.

Re:They're doing both.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure they will keep around the existing HD MPEG2 locals as long as the keep around and other HD MPEG2 channels.

Re:They're doing both.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they? The whole point is using MPG4 so that they can cram more channels in a given amount of bandwidth.

Keeping the channels around in MPG2 as well makes no sense at all.

IMZombie

Re:They're doing both.

[javaxman]

The real kicker is when the full MPEG4 transition occurs-- this is where you're going to lose all your non-HD channels. It's likely that they will offer you a replacement box (although this is just me speculating) for free or at a steep discount, since those of you with the HD-Tivo are highend customers. Unfortunately for the Tivo faithful, it won't be a Tivo.

That's a bit of a drag, to say the least. I wonder if there's still time for them to change their minds if I point out to them that this policy will likely send me back into the arms of Comcast, who, oddly enough, will likely have a digital TV Tivo out at about the time they're talking about doing all of this.

What might be almost a bigger question in my mind is... wouldn't such a change also make non-DVR decoder boxes obsolete as well? Isn't that a huge risk/cost for DirecTV ? Who exactly is saying they're changing their non-HD feed from MPEG2 to MPEG4 ? I'd understand the reasons for wanting to use MPEG4, but the cost seems high enough for a deployed system that I'd be stunned to hear that they're actually doing it. That's a *lot* of DirecTV tuners becoming useless or needing to be replaced, and a huge opportunity for the competition... I can't see how that's something stockholders would like to hear about.

Re:They're doing both.

[MBGMorden]

I wonder if there's still time for them to change their minds if I point out to them that this policy will likely send me back into the arms of Comcast,

Nah, somehow I doubt a single customer will affect their plans on a major technical rollout ;). All joking aside, satellite TV's main target audience are the people who because of some circumstance or another cannot get cable (ie, rural residences, of which there are quite a bit in this country). To that effect in many areas DirecTV's only competition is DISH, and their prices and services are so similar that it doesn't really matter which one you have, so it's usually better to just stick with your current provider.

For what it's worth, I'm currently a DirecTV subscriber (I had DISH in the past but my reciever quit quite a few years ago and I couldn't get a new one at a promotional rate. Instead of paying the couple $100 for a new DISH receiver I just switched to DirecTV for $50 on a promotion. I still prefered the DISH interface but the services are pretty close to each other). I don't currently own a DVR though (I only watch 3 or 4 shows anyways and I can always get them from Bittorrent if I happen to miss an episode). My only hope in this is that if/when they switch completely to an MPEG4 encoding scheme that my current receiver will be replaced at no charge.

Re:They're doing both.

[Anonymous Coward]

Backward compatibility with their install base.

AFAIK they're using MPEG4 on new channels on new satellites for the reason you say. Dropping MPEG2 broadcasts would mean all existing customer equipment (HD or non-HD) would stop working, which would mean incurring a huge cost to replace all of it.

Re:They're doing both.

[Anonymous Coward]

There seem to be a bunch of trolls claiming that DirecTV is going to in effect cut off service to all of their existing customers equipment tomorrow. This seems unlikely from a business perspective. Even the cable companies couldn't afford to do this.

For now MPEG4 is going to be using on new spot satellites for new coverage.

Re:They're doing both.

[raygundan]

You're quite right, and I apologize if my post wasn't clear. The non-HD transition is years away, and yes, it will break existing boxes. HD won't even be done in all markets by the end of 2006, judging from DirecTV's announcements. They will also be subsidizing replacement boxes, although they won't be Tivos.

What I was trying to say is that this is a long, slow transition starting with HD locals and gradually working its way down to the SD channels.

It should be noted that this is not a troll. DirecTV is going to break compatibility with existing boxes in more than one way, too-- not only are they transitioning the compression system to MPEG4, they will be switching modulation schemes to cram more into their airspace.

But this will NOT be a "cutoff." It will be a gradual, market-by-market transition, and SD probably won't happen until churn converts enough people to the newer boxes without directv having to foot the bill.

I love the smell of....

[AtariAmarok]

"...arrangement of words called a sentance. please attempt..."

I love the smell of self-immolating grammar nazis in the morning.

No surprise

[sunderland56]

I'd have loved to be there during the meetings... one megalomaniac headstrong Brit and one megalomaniac headstrong Scot, in a room together, both thinking they're God. Wonderful. Odds on those two agreeing is so close to zero nobody's going to give you odds.

I get DirecTV HD, but there's no way I'm spending one dime on anything so close to bankruptcy as Tivo.

Re:No surprise

[TDyl]

Thinking Murdoch is a Brit is probably what that Aussie would want you to think. Scottish folk are Brits too.

Re:No surprise

[Generic Guy]

I get DirecTV HD, but there's no way I'm spending one dime on anything so close to bankruptcy as Tivo.

Okay, I can't just let this dog lie undisturbed. TiVo is not close to bankruptcy, despite their misgivings on Wall Street. In fact, as of their last conference call, they are expecting to turn profitable by the end of this year. They intend to balance revenue from three streams: hardware, subscriptions, and ad sponsers. That's good news for TiVo faithful.

The bad news is that they plan to reach profitability by sacrificing the ideals which brought them the love in the first place. Their hardware gets less reliable each iteration and harder to hack (for your own software patches). They sell ad space on the interface top menu. And now they are beginning to push pop-up ads on their paying subscribers (while you fast-forward). The recent deal with Comcast will put some variation of TiVo software on Comcast DVRs, most likely with the pop-up ads.

It remains to be seen how losing 2/3 of their base from DirecTV (in 2007) will affect TiVo, but they should be profitable by then. Don't hate TiVo for 'dying' like BSD and Apple. Instead, hate TiVo for sacrificing their own ideals.

Re:No surprise

[ckelly5]

They may be losing a large number of their subscribers in the DTV fallout, but at least 70% (if not more) of thier revenue comes from the standalone subscribers and hardware. Even losing DTV as a partner/ customer, they're still in really good shape, not to mention picking up Comcast as a partner/ customer.

DirectTV TiVos safe

[deanj]

If you have one of those DirectTV TiVos, DirectTV is the outfit that sold it to you in the first place. If they change their signal, complain to DirectTV, not the TiVo.

Re:DirectTV TiVos safe

[Sponge Bath]

...complain to DirectTV, not the TiVo

No way dude!
I'm complaining to Slashdot, as usual.

I can't wait for the new formats!

[Chris Pimlott]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only excited about this upcoming switch! I mean, sure,
Ku band, QPSK and MPEG-2 are alright. But
Ka band, 8PSK and MPEG-4 are clearly going to blow them all away! (At least until Ko Band, ¥PSK and MPEG-7 come out...)

Re:I can't wait for the new formats!

[As Seen On TV]

Point of trivia: MPEG-7 is already here. It's a metadata standard. It was all the rage five years ago, but it appears to have been basically ignored ever since. It seems like that's what often happens when standards-fetishists take over something. They hammer out a standard which is voluminous and complete and useless, and are shocked when nobody adopts it.

This is totally off message, but I have a very low opinion of standards bodies. I fall into the descriptive-not-normative camp. Codify what's already succeeded in the marketplace, don't hand out standards like the pope speaking ex cathedra and expect them to catch on.

But that's just me.

Re:I can't wait for the new formats!

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Ka band - It's a higher-frequency band that's currently far more open than the lower-frequency Ku band. It allows for higher-bandwidth satellite transmissions.

8PSK - A new modulation system that allows 3 bits to be represented instead of 2 with each sample. PSK uses the phase of the signal to encode data. QPSK uses 4 different "levels", 8PSK allows 8. This also translates into higher-bandwidth.

MPEG-4 - A new encoding system that provides better picture quality with less bandwidth.

So, what does this mean?

SPACEWAY, DIRECTV's new satellite family (there are 2 in-space satellites plus a third to be launched later), combined with the new band, new encoding, and new modulation will allow the holy-grail of satellite broadcasting: HD Local-Into-Local.

By FCC law, DIRECTV can't transmit local stations to subscribers who live in a different designated market area (DMA). A person in Denver can't get channels from New York, for example.

Currently, DRIECTV transmits local channels in pretty-lame-quality SD. There are almost 1500 high-power broadcasters in the US, so it's a tough job to cover them all.

SPACEWAY has a lot more bandwidth. That means that DIRECTV will be able to carry *all* of the local channels in the US in HD.

It's a long road, as DIRECTV has 13 million customers. Replacing all of those boxes will take a long time. It's probably reasonable to assume that DIRECTV's Ku-band services will continue at least until 2010, if not longer.

So, what does this mean for the HD-Tivo user?

- You will continue to get what you get now for a good long time

- You can still recieve and record HD locals off the air

- You will need a new dish, new multiswitch, and new recievers for HD locals off the satellite

Also interesting is Echostar's ("Dish Network") response to SPACEWAY. E* is purchasing Rainbow DBS ("VOOM"), which will give them plenty of room for national HD channels. Even with VOOM and their current satellite arsenal, though, E* has nothing to really compete with SPACEWAY. E* will have to launch one or more new Ka-band satellites in the next few years if they want to stay competitive with DIRECTV.

Re:I can't wait for the new formats!

[lgw]

Good standards bodies codify what's already in (or about to be in) the marketplace. Bad standards bodies churn out vapor standards that no one ever adopts. I think we just need higher standards in standards bodies ... perhaps if we has a standards body standard we could OUCH STOP HITTING ME

Re:I can't wait for the new formats!

[As Seen On TV]

On this, one of the worst days of my life, your post made me laugh. Thanks.

Intenet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Deurrruhh.. what's the Internet? Duh is my joke funny hahahah?? I just sit in my log cabin in the woods and swing around on trees.

Re:No problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting - over-the-air digital sounds like a great solution.

To hell with Cable and Satellite operators.

What brand/model of equipment do you have?

One way to fix it

[Fyre2012]

Stop watching TV.
It's not like there is a single piece of value from it. You're just spending $n/month to waste time.

Re:One way to fix it

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just spending $n/month to waste time.

Pretty much the description of all entertainment-related spending, don't you think?

Re:One way to fix it

[As Seen On TV]

You, sir, have obviously not seen "Battlestar Galactica."

Re:TV? What is that?

[Surt]

To control people's minds, of course. Who wouldn't want to own such a thing?

TV

[PenGun]

It's pretty simple. TV is a tool used by your corporate masters to condition your little minds into being complient tools of their consumer market.

As one who dosn't watch one regularly I am always astounded that people let _anyone_ treat them like the morons that the TV makes them out to be.

PenGun
Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

Re:TV

[Hassman]

You mean you don't watch BSG? Bad! Bad!

Re:TV

[PenGun]

Nope but if it's good I will eventually aquire it. You may notice my sig shows a pretty complete knowledge of at least part of the Cartoon Network.

PenGun
Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

Re:TV

[Hassman]

Oh man, I didn't notice that before. My hat is off to you sir.

Re:No problem.

[Surt]

pffft. You lazy people with your wells. My family treks over 30 miles with 20 camels to the nearest river on a weekly basis to bring home the water we need.

not much of an issue

[SethJohnson]

To me, this is another example where "early adopters" get burnt, but the masses will not even notice. I've owned my Tivo since something like 2001 and used it exclusively with analog cable. I suspect there are a lot of us out there. Probably more than there are HD subscribers with HD Tivos. I'm just not persuaded that I need HDTV and I'm happy to hold off on getting one until it's the cheap standard that costs the same as normal TV's cost now.

By that time, all this kind of stuff will be sorted.

seth

Re:not much of an issue

[As Seen On TV]

Early adopters always get burned. That's why there are so few of them.

Re:not much of an issue

[nsayer]

That's why there are so few of them.

There are so few of them merely by definition. When there aren't few, they're not "early" anymore.

Now, by Rocky do you mean..

[Anonymous Coward]

Shaky business or..

Rocky Balboa vs. Apollo Creed?

future in mind with directtv and comcast

[w98]

Wonder how a controlling stake from DirecTV would influence the ComCast deal... Or better, whether the DirectTV deal with sour *because* of the ComCast deal?

Either way, with a generic tv capture card and a spare linux box with sufficient cron jobs, I have my own digital recorder. No need to invest in TiVo ...

Re:future in mind with directtv and comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

That works well enough for SD.

First of all, it's impossible to capture analog HD. Most everything you are used to doing with analog standard definition video does not apply anymore with HD.

Second, and most important, you won't even be able to use your Linux box with HD in the near future if broadcasters get their way with this 'broadcast bit' bullshit. Already starting this July all computer based HD tuner cards will be required to honor the broadcast bit, and may likely diminish their use to where it isn't worthwhile to sell them anymore.

Finally, one major point of having an integrated DirecTiVo is the mpeg stream goes directly to the disk for zero quality loss during playback. Both SD and HD. Especially for those of us with HD systems, we really aren't talking about VCR's here.

If HD OTA recording on your Linux box works for you, then I really encourage you to support EFF's "build-in" efforts to build HD capable PC's before the broadcast bit requirement.

A little off topic.

[sbirnie]

I had DirecTv once, and although I like the picture quality of DirecTv better than cable, the cost of buying several new receivers and a new HD dish is just outrageous compared to renting a cable company box for $5 bucks a month, with the ability to upgrade whenever a new box comes out. They need to use the same model if they want me to switchback to them - which I'd be more than happy to do.

TIVO access to DirecTV

[Digital Pizza]

Does the FCC's new CableCard requirement help with DirectTV access at all? And yeah, I do know it's CableCard, but still...

Re:No problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought you needed electricity to use a computer O.O

Re:TV? What is that?

[DriveDog]

I haven't personally seen a Murdoch (except the one on A-Team) but I've heard they exist. Why would anyone want to send one their money?

Re:No problem.

[markov_chain]

I don't have cable, and the broadcast reception is pretty poor. Fortunately, there is a technology that dramatically improves the signal-to-noise ratio in more ways than just image quality; you can find out more on www.btefnet.org

Rumored Trade-in Plan for new HMCs

[ac3boy]

Here is the rumored trade-in plan to get the new HMCs. It is very generous but I hope they stick to it.

HMC Cost update.

Latest info:

Two base (HD HMC) units with different capacity.

1) 240 GB - $499 + $99 for SD units and $199 for HD remote units
2) 480 GB - $599 + $99 for SD units and $199 for HD remote units

Trade in Values:

HD-TiVo -> High capacity unit + 2 HD remote units
SD TiVo -> Low capacity Unit + 1 SD remote unit
SD Receiver -> Low Capacity unit and 1 SD for every three (3) SD receivers.
It's basically a price match. For example, if you have two SD TiVo's and an standard HD unit, you can obtain the High Capacity + 1 HD remote unit in exchange.

Values on units for trade in:

Standard SD Receiver - No value for HMC - 1 for 1 on SD remote units
Standard HD Receiver - Low cap HMC or 1 HD Remote unit
1 TiVo - Low Capacity HMC + SD Unit
2 TiVo - High Capacity HMC + SD Unit, or High Capacity + SD Unit

Dollar Value:

SD Receiver $99
HD Receiver $399
TiVo $199
HD TiVo - $899

Re:Rumored Trade-in Plan for new HMCs

[ckelly5]

I live in the Boston area, one of the first to get the new HD local channels. I am anxiously waiting for this rollout, and if that's the current deal, that's a bloody steal. I'll trade my dTiVo in for a low-capacity HMC (or pay a little more for a high capacity one) in a heartbeat for that price.

DirecTV's DVR is still vaporware

[McSpew]

DirecTV is coming out with their own DVR that will be some kind of home entertainment thing.

Let's keep in mind that DirecTV has only announced a DVR system (to be built by News Corp subsidiary and fellow Murdoch-empire-stablemate NDS), but hasn't yet delivered a product, and the ship date continues to slip. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with, but if the current level of competition is any indication, TiVo will still have a superior UI and more robust scheduling system.

Re:DirecTV's DVR is still vaporware

[class_A]

NewsCorp/NDS already have their own PVR, it's called Sky+

Re:DirecTV's DVR is still vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

NDS is building DIRECTV's DVR. They were trying to have a system running last year, but it's harder than it looks. (NDS's Sky+ box is pretty crappy and was quite late; and the DIRECTV broadcasts/APG are trickier than the DVB which I believe is what Sky+ uses. As another example, Microsoft's Ultimate TV was in DIRECTV's QA labs and kept crashing every 20 minutes. Microsoft just didn't get why that was a problem, but DIRECTV held their feet to the fire and made them go away and come back when the system didn't crash so much.)

In November, NDS had a raw circuit board with external power supply and disk in DIRECTV's lab, so it's not COMPLETE vaporware. They were supposed to have had a running box in a chassis six months earlier. I have no idea if they have made significant progress since then, but I expect they'll miss shipping (at least in any volume) by this Christmas, leaving DIRECTV scrambling to ship TiVo combos to keep up with Comcast. We'll know around August.

The NDS box might end up having a cool feature or two, but I bet I'd still rather use the TiVo box on a daily basis. Also, I sure wish DIRECTV would allow TiVo to turn on networking and associated features. I know TiVo has that stuff all working internally.

I'm afraid the recent Washington Post article spread needless FUD. DIRECTV has this type of upgrade problem all the time. There are antique single-sat receivers out there that still only use the original Program Guide broadcasts that they have had since their business began. Those receivers still do everything they ever did. Similarly, the current TiVo HD DVRs will continue to receive all the channels they currently do, and more (plus there are the built in over-the-air HD tuners for local HD content) for the foreseeable future. DIRECTV will eventually *add* more HD content using AVC/H.264, but I think it will only be on the new Spaceway Sats, and they won't have any compelling reason to drop the existing HD feeds on the existing Sats.

If I were DIRECTV, I would have hedged my bets, waiting to deprecate TiVo until NDS delivered a running system. But it was probably emotionally satisfying for them to pound TiVo ('s stock price) with a trickle of negative press releases.

Re:DirecTV's DVR is still vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you are not following the conversation. We are talking about DirecTV, here in the USA. It does not matter that NDS has a PVR for Sky in the UK. It does not have a PVR for DirecTV here in the USA, and the NDS PVR is way behind schedule.

If DirecTV does not renew and expand its relationship with TiVo, they are idiots - or rather, Murdoch is.

Re:DirecTV's DVR is still vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, except that Pace designed, implemented, and manufacture Sky+.

Re:DirecTV's DVR is still vaporware

[class_A]

Yes, but the new Sky HD box (with MPEG4 decoding and PVR functionality) will be built by Thompson. Given that DirecTV are also moving to MPEG4 for future HiDef, hence making current HD-TiVo's obsolete, I would say NewsCorp seem to know what they are doing. My point is that Sky contracted Pace to deliver a PVR and they have done so, quite successfully given the take-up of Sky+ in the UK.

Funny this should come up

[kin_korn_karn]

I am a very happy DirecTV customer, and had planned on getting one of their $99 DVRs in the next couple of weeks and switching my service over to use it. Should I put that off in light of this?

Re:Funny this should come up

[Anonymous Coward]

Bahh...
Don't listen to this rabble.

-Rupert's son

Re:Funny this should come up

[cpuh0g]

You are confused. The $99 DVR is not for doing HDTV and will not be obsolete when they switch HD signals. You are talking about the standard DirecTV DVR as opposed to the HDTV one.

Go ahead and get your $99 DVR, it will be fine for non-HD content. If you want an HDTV DVR, then you will have to spend about $999 and your box will likely need to be replaced in a couple of years.

There is some discussion that DirecTV will upgrade existing HDTV customers for free at that time, but Im not so sure if that is true or not.

Re:Funny this should come up

[kin_korn_karn]

Ahh, ok, I guess I didn't realize this was about HDTV only. Thanks.

Re:Funny this should come up

[Elvisisdead]

Don't go ahead and get the non-HD DirecTiVo. The fuckers at DirecTV have crippled it so that it won't run the Home Media Option.

Buy an actual TiVo instead.

Signed,
Duped Series 2 DirecTiVo owner.

Re:Funny this should come up

[Generic Guy]

Don't go ahead and get the non-HD DirecTiVo. The fuckers at DirecTV have crippled it so that it won't run the Home Media Option.

I don't know if you get email responses here, but see http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/ about 'fixing' your DirecTivo. Many happy satellite subscribers using HMO and all that.

Rules of Acquisition.

[AtariAmarok]

"IF you're watching fox, its sticking your hands in your ears and going NYAAAAA when someone says something that isnt true"

Quark? Is that you? No one else I know who can put their hands in their own ears. I guess you get pretty sore when Neil Cavuto talks down your investment companies, don't you?

Comcast,/DirecTV Shuffle

[unfortunateson]

It looks like TiVo got squeezed out by Comcast and DirecTV: TiVo walked away from the Comcast deal last year, and I'm betting part of it was due to DirecTV: DTV wouldn't want such close ties with Comcast.

When the DirecTV deals fell apart, TiVo had to go back to Comcast hat in hand, and beg to get the same deal that they could have probably improved upon.

Are you conservative?

[AtariAmarok]

"The problem is that conservatives and science usually don't mix, so you won't be seeing anything like this from their side"

According to what you said, you must be a conservative, obviously. No one who knows anything about science and technology would think that it would take a scientist to market a simple TV channel filter. I bet you think that auto factory line workers and lipstick saleswomen are all scientists too!

Re:TV? What is that?

[LetterJ]

No different than the mind control device that has managed to turn all people without a TV into automatons, reciting the same liturgy of disdain at every available opportunity. You are not morally superior, intellectually free or otherwise improved simply because of your rejection of TV.

Likewise, I'm not a better person because I choose not to drink alcohol. Does not drinking alcohol give me more time to pursue more "noble" activities each week that is unclouded by alcoholic distractions? Absolutely. However, so would a number of other choices like avoiding Slashdot. Is my wife a better person than you because she abstains from participating on this site? No.

TV is one form of entertainment out of many. And, despite the deep longings and ideal dreams of the anti-TV elite, removing televisions from homes will not result in 230 million Americans suddenly picking up Tolstoy. Rather, they'd simply turn to other forms of entertainment that demand equally little of their intellect.

I enjoy TV. I enjoy movies. I enjoy books. I have not stated a logical paradox in the previous 3 sentences.

DirecTivos suck

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the misfortune of getting one. DirecTv crippled them and released them with less features than standalone Tivos. The one feature that it really pisses me off that I can't get but I know all of the other series 2 Tivos have is Tivo2Go which allows you to copy movies to your PC.

Re:DirecTivos suck

[CatOne]

Right, you can't get Tivo2Go or the home media option.

On the other hand, you can run dual tuners, which is HUGE. And you can download schedule data from teh satellite instead of having to keep the phone chord plugged in, if it's not a convenient run.

Re:DirecTivos suck

[tgibbs]

On the other hand, you can run dual tuners, which is HUGE. And you can download schedule data from teh satellite instead of having to keep the phone chord plugged in, if it's not a convenient run.

Actually, you don't need the phone cord for stand-alone TiVo's either. You can plug in a USB ethernet or WiFi adaptor and get everything over the internet. I think that you may need the phone for initial setup, but that's it.

Re:DirecTivos suck

[tivoKlr]

Just suck it up and hack your directivo, run any number of free apps on it, and download unscrambled pure mpeg2 streams from the satellite to your hearts content.

that's what I do anyway...

Re:DirecTivos suck

[Big Boss]

Well, not officially. However, my 2 DTivos have HMO. While you can't get Tivo2Go, it sucks anyway. You get extraction, which doesn't suffer from idiot DRM and crippled speed and you don't have to buy a $50 program to use it! Note: I can extract a 1 hour program (about 1Gig) in about 10 minutes. Tivo2Go users report download times measured in HOURS.

This works on all RID based units EXCEPT the R10. To check if you have a RID unit, look on the back, it will have a RID number if it is. Older, non-RID units have an even eaiser hack procedure for 4.x/HMO.

http://www.dellanave.com/projects/tivo/4xrid.html

Re:DirecTivos suck

[eric_n_dfw]

You can plug in a USB ethernet or WiFi adaptor and get everything over the internet.Unless this is different on the newest DirecTivo's, then the USB ports are not active (unless you hack it)

Re:DirecTivos suck

[tgibbs]

Unless this is different on the newest DirecTivo's, then the USB ports are not active (unless you hack it)

That was precisely my point--I was talking about an advantage of the stand-alone TiVos over the DirecTiVo units.

It hasn't even helped with stand-alone Tivo!

[swb]

Last I heard, no CableCard Tivos until 2006, which is idiotic. Rumor has it that a rev to the CableCard spec to make it somewhat saner (and more desirable to end-users) is why, but I still think it smells like either (another) bungle by Tivo or cable stalling, or both.

I can't see why CableCard would help with satellite systems, since you can make the argument that the satellite signal format is a function of competitive advantage (channels, dish sizes, etc).

The real reason is that both Dish and DTV want their systems as incompatible as possible, as it is a barrier to migration to the competitive product.

I do like the idea, though, of an uber-smart 'cablecard' enabled Tivo that can tune digital cable, DTV and Dish simultaenously (presumably with two, self-aiming dishes).

Marketers need to learn...

[CDarklock]

You cannot *make* us watch your commercials, and the harder you try, the more we will hate you.

Let's take the recent commercial for Lime Coke. They have this neat little play on Harry Nilsson's classic song "Coconut", which is amusing already, and they made a cute little vignette out of it. But once I've seen it four or five times, I'm done. I never need to see it again. If I was going to try Lime Coke, and I was, I would already have tried it -- which I did -- and decided whether I wanted to continue buying it, which I do. The sale is over. Any *further* commercials they show me for Lime Coke are a complete waste of time. And that's a commercial that SUCCEEDS.

So when you start worrying about whether I'm going to skip your commercials and you won't get your money's worth, you need a reality check. I don't watch your commercials ANYWAY. When your commercials come on, I will either watch them -- the first couple of times -- or else I will converse with my wife, go to the bathroom, check my email, or grab a snack from the kitchen.

I am not going to sit and watch your commercials no matter WHAT you do. The most you can do is force me to wait for what I actually *want* to be doing, during which time I will be annoyed and impatient and looking at your product's name. How do you think I'm going to feel when I see your product in a store? Why, I'll feel annoyed and impatient, of course. And that *doesn't* translate to increased sales.

Re:Marketers need to learn...

[fugspit]

And yet, I was not aware that Lime Coke existed. The very fact that they played the commercial over and over directly lead to you mentioning Lime Coke. Which in turn lead to me hearing about Lime Coke and now I want to go out and buy a can. So it would seem that repeating the ads will indeed result in at least one more sale.

Re:Marketers need to learn...

[illumin8]

If I was going to try Lime Coke, and I was, I would already have tried it -- which I did -- and decided whether I wanted to continue buying it, which I do. The sale is over.

You just disproved your own point. You also illustrate a perfect example of why marketers use repetitive advertising in the first place. Sure, you may not have consciously purchased lime Coke because of the advertisement, but I would bet that a catchy song, combined with the repetitive nature of advertising (same commercial repeated every 10 minutes, ad nauseum) caused lime Coke to "bubble to the surface" of your consciousness and resulted in an impulse buy at the checkout counter. That's why advertising works. It implants itself in your subconscious through repetition, and bubbles to the surface at just the right moment to turn a person that would have normally said "Lime Coke, never heard of it..." into someone that says "Lime Coke, I gotta try that!"

As long as advertising works, advertisers will continue to figure out ways to annoy us with it. Want to stop advertising? Stop buying Lime Coke... Seriously, you are just giving them reinforcement that their advertising works, and therefore you are guaranteeing that more of those Lime Coke ads will show on TV.

Remember that Seinfeld episode where George gets that Mennen commercial jingle stuck in his head? That is what advertising tries to do: push a meme on us that is catchy and simple and hopefully it will get stuck in our head on an endless feedback loop, turning us all into helpless zombies chanting ".... must BUY MENNEN!" :-)

Re:Marketers need to learn...

[WiggyWack]

"When your commercials come on, I will either watch them -- the first couple of times -- or else I will converse with my wife, go to the bathroom, check my email, or grab a snack from the kitchen."

If you're posting on Slashdot, there's a good chance you're going to do the latter.

Re:Marketers need to learn...

[CDarklock]

> You just disproved your own point.

I think you just slightly misunderstood it. It *was* the commercial that convinced me to try Lime Coke. I saw the commercial, and promptly forgot about it. It took a few times for me to get it stuck in my head enough that I remembered to look for it at the store. So yes, repetitive marketing works.

But once I'd already seen it, tried the product, and settled on being a regular customer... the commercial keeps on playing. It also plays a lot more often now. It took me almost a week to see it the four or five times that I *needed* to see it, but now I see it two or three times a day.

Eventually, the commercial hits a "rebound" point and makes me want to actively avoid the company's products because they remind me of the commercial. The Lime Coke commercial is, actually, a bad example -- it happens to be one of the best commercials I've seen in a long time, so it will take it a long time to hit the rebound point. I probably should have chosen a different commercial, because a *bad* commercial gets annoying a lot faster. ;)

The question here is, where do we *really* hit the trailing edge of the bell curve? There comes a time when your marketing message begins to annoy people, because it's being handed to people who either do not want your product, or are already using it. At some point, the risk to your public image outweighs the potential benefit of a few new customers. Marketers seem to think they can milk the message a *lot* longer than I see it working in practice.

> Remember that Seinfeld episode
> where George gets that Mennen
> commercial jingle stuck in his head?

No, but I remember Ellen Degeneres having a similar element in her stand-up set a few years ago, and I remember the Orwellian backlash against Beatrice when "we're Beatrice" started showing up at the end of damn near every commercial on television around the late eighties or early nineties.

Ubiquity *scares* people. Not only do they not like it, they will actually take up arms against you for it. Microsoft is a great example of that. Also notice how a lot of people switched away from Red Hat when it became almost synonymous with Linux.

Re:Marketers need to learn...

[CDarklock]

However, I would already have mentioned Lime Coke in the proper context after becoming a customer. As the commercial continues to play, I am progressively less likely to recommend Lime Coke, and more likely to bitch about that damnable commercial.

Repetitive marketing isn't the only way, either. There's a car insurance company in the Pacific northwest called Vern Fonk, and there's an insurance adjuster who works there named Rob Thielke. Rob Thielke makes some of the most twisted and demented commercials on the planet. They don't play often, but when they do, people *talk* about them.

10-250's over-the-air tuners

[tgibbs]

Oddly enough, I probably record at least as much HDTV over the air as off of DirecTV's satellite. I get all of the major networks with just a rooftop antenna in beautiful HDTV. Quite a change from when over-the-air TV was riddled with ghosts and noise. So I'm not particularly worried that my 10-250 won't be able to record DirecTV's HD locals when they finally get around to adding them.

As for DirecTV introducing their own HD DVR, I'll believe it when I see it. I've been disappointed before by DVRs that are supposedly "just as good" as TiVo. If DirecTV doesn't offer a TiVo upgrade to the 10-250, I'll probably end up dropping DirecTV returning to Comcast. DirecTV has provided crappy support for their TiVo systems, anyway. Many features that have long been available on TiVo's stand-alone units, such as iTunes music play, internet scheduling, and export to PC, are still unavailable on DirecTiVo units.

Re:This is Business news, really. [winhat]

[winhat4]

You think he wants everyone to use the safer browser by default, make it so. If you need to, rename the "firefox" icon as "internet".

You think he wants to walk around after he's dead ?! You think he wants to be reaffirmed in the final sense, a theft from those who feel.

Stop The Madness

[SomeOtherGuy]

How many early adopters must die because of such crazyness.

I lost an uncle in the Beta Wars.

My dad lost his site and the use of his left arm in the Laser Disc campaigns.

And yet, the brave are marching out again to an expensive and certain death in the HDTV campaigns.

And meanwhile the rich get richer.

It is true

[WindowLicker916]

I'm a DTV installer so I'm aware of all the changes to come. Yes you will have to get a new HDTivo, HD receivers, and possibly even new standard receivers. I am not aware though if they plan on charging people for the equipment or replacing it all for free. I'de imagine that they would replace it for free though. figuring most people would say screw that and goto a competitor for their tv needs. I for one can't wait for their new satellites to be up and running! It's going to increase work for me, and it's going to help drive down prices on HD receivers. HD receivers go for about $300-400 right now. I'de easily imagine they will drop to around $100 or even be free. DTV is going to want to make a major push on its new HD services.

hmm

[Is0m0rph]

I still am using the old DTV Microsoft Ultimate TV boxes. I wonder what kind of deal I'll get from DTV to upgrade the 3 to their DVRS?

Re:No problem.

[lgw]

Nice! I get all my TV through a combination of rabbit ears and Netflix, and it would be nice if the former were as clear as the latter!

Re:TV? What is that?

[lgw]

Dangit! Here I was feeling morally superior because I use all my non-TV-watching time to drink alcohol, and you had to go and spoil it!

HD Tivo Info

[adachan]

I heard that the new Direct TV satellites are going to be using mpeg4 instead of mpeg2 for HD material. This seems to make sense as long as the bitrate is high enough. This will allow for more channels, however what this does is require everyone to buy a new box as far as I can tell. Without an update to decode mpeg4 the current boxes will not be able to interpret the data being transmitted to the dish.

This is similar to a DVD player that can not read mpeg4 encoded DVDs I burn. I like to burn tv shows I record with my ATi all in wonder using divx and mp3 for video and audio. The resolution and sound are perfectly acceptable for television watching (I like A cook's tour alot) If I put these DVDs in my standard DVD player, they do not do anything. However, If I put them into a DVD player with the correct firmware which is capable of reading both the file structure and the file format then I can watch the programs I record. A standard DVD player or even recorder most likely will not understand the data and just report a disc error.

What does this mean? I can record tv shows at about the same resolution as the original and downsample the audio to make a much smaller file. I can get many many hours (I think I am getting 6-8 at acceptable resolution on my 51 Inch HDTV) of television on one dvd in the same space that mpeg2 video with dolby digital can only get around 2 hours.

The question that I have is what bitrate will DirectTV be sending the data? Many of the PBS channels I can recieve OTA are clearly at 1080i resolution but the bitrate is significantly reduced yeilding a somewhat pixelated looking picture. I am worried that we are going to be getting jipped on the bitrate side of things becasue people only seem to care about resolution these days. Does anyone know what the answer to this is?

What HD content are y'all watching?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it worth it for a newbie to plung into HDTV yet, given all the uncertainties with formats and hardware? How compelling is the available content?

NON HDTV worth anything?

[mabhatter654]

Who's seriously going to buy a non-HD digital TV? The problem is that everyone is trying to get "early adopter" prices WHEN the spec comes into place... The makers want to gouge the public and the broadcasters are dragging their feet "because they can".

We should have had digital signals 100% several years ago... the specs were designed to allow nearly 7 years of dual broadcasting overlap...but all that time has been squandered. You were supposed to be able to buy a DTV-to-analog converter for $50 years ago... the electronics is no more complicated that a $99 gamecube [without the moving parts]

DirecTV? No thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.directvdefense.org -- why I will NEVER be a DirecTV customer

You do realise the Scottish are British don't you?

[davidmb]

And that Rupert Murdoch is Australian?

Re:You do realise the Scottish are British don't y

[sunderland56]

Scots are NOT British. That's like saying New Yorkers are Californian. Scotland and England are once-separate countries, that are now part of a new country called the United Kingdom. Scots are, er, "United Kingdomers", or whatever, but they're decidedly not British. (Or as my dad would say, "them northerners arren't civilized enough to be Brits").

Er, and yes, I did forget that Murdoch was Australian. But, then again, Australia is a colony... although now separate, in some ways, Australia is more "British", being a British colony, than Scotland, which is a separate country that formed an economic union with Britain.

But now we're all one happy borderless "European Union"....